Re:So
"In your happy world of unicorn tear waterfalls and fluffy fields of marshmallow, any business that offers a service must offer it perfectly and indefinitely for free, or at least at no profit?"
No, and there's no need to be a patronising prick either. The point is you don't setup services and encourage users (or sheeplike followers with little real IT knowledge) to base their whole IT universe around them and then whip the carpet out from under their feet. It will bite you on the arse eventually and let's not forget this is a company that went tits up in the past.
"It's not as if Apple have given a years notice and given a FoC extention to current MobileMe users, or that there are similar services that are available for less, or indeed free, elsewhere is it?"
The point is that Apple make sure they tie you in to using their services and theirs alone. They know their user-base isn't the most IT literate which is why the people bought the kit in the first place as it is a damn site easier to use for the novice. Do you really think someone who uses iWeb and its hosting is going to configure a web server on a third-party host or know how to reconfigure the deployment? Is there any real reason they couldn't have kept things like the iWeb hosting part going? Really? Charge a little more maybe? No, they just couldn't give a toss.
I don't use any of their services, never have and never will, for just this reason but I at least acknowledge that there are less IT literate types that do and I don't have to belittle or patronise to get my point across.